WHO said for weeks it wasn't transmittable between humans, that countries should not impose travel restrictions, and insisting late into the pandemic that you don't need to wear masks unless you're infected.
Arguably the WHO has blood on its hands for allowing the virus to spread.
They unquestionably are influenced by China and CCP's politics, not just denying Taiwan's existence, but the many statements praising China throughout the entire pandemic, on virtually all talking points, while being critical of western nations handling of the virus.
If ever there was a time to take action, point fingers, and restore some dignity to supposedly independent health organizations, it is now, by creating a new organization.
This seems to be a "look over there" response. China had a big issue. In Netherlands not much was done. Italy had big issues. Netherlands ignored it. It spread to Netherlands, suddenly extreme measures had to be taken. Meanwhile, not much was done in USA, aside from things like "meh, everything will probably be fine".
Now instead of acknowledging that things went wrong, it's because of someone else, say WHO. And China!
UK had a report saying that a pandemic was the biggest threat. They recommended a tactical amount of ventilators to be kept, plus various other actions. Nothing was done.
> If ever there was a time to take action, point fingers
Blaming doesn't really help anything IMO. Figure out the various causes and take action on them. Blaming, too easy.
> WHO said for weeks it wasn't transmittable between humans
This is not true. They posted:
"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China,"
I agree this was not very wise from the WHO to post this, but China refused any other investigations so the WHO had to rely on information from China.
You act like the world didn't know until April, but by then China, Iran, Italy, and Spain were ablaze and people were saying by the thousands. Your government had the same information everyone else had. why did South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Jordan fare so well? Blame your own government for not responding fast enough and for not listening to their advisors. The blood is on their hands.
At that time, they relied only on chinese info, which turned out false. They didn't have much more. Do they still claim it?
By your logic, we should dissolve US government too - they knew very well what's coming, the scale of it, and focused more on attacking and blaming anything external rather than working on preparation and minimizing the spread. Do you remember top of US government claiming covid is hoax?
Trump's mis-handling of this created by far the biggest epicentre of covid - this concerns whole world, not US only. And US had quite a bit of time to prepare.
This has been flagged off the front-page, likely because it mentions the WHO. I haven't really been following the criticism of their handling of this all that closely, so this might be worth reading for others in the same boat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_...
This article seems to directly contradict some of the claims made by anti-WHO folks here. In particular, this portion of the timeline jumped out at me, contradicting the claim that the WHO was claiming no human-to-human transmission as late as early February:
--
On 14 January, Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO told in a press briefing that "it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission"
The WHO recommended countries to take precautions due to the human-to-human transmission during earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks. On the same day, the WHO's Twitter account reported that "preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission".
On 20 January, the WHO released a tweet that it was "now very clear from the latest information that there is at least some human-to-human transmission" that has occurred, given that healthcare workers had been infected.
On 22 January, WHO issued a statement stating that the data "suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan", and called for more investigation.
--
This certainly sounds to me like they initially said that we weren't seeing human-to-human transmission in mid-Jan, but within a week or so, the data was starting to show the opposite, and they said so.
Indeed. The timeline speaks for itself, and it provides excellent sources in international media. There is a massive misinformation campaign going on in many countries.
US media and some of right wing European media is charging against WHO because they have to blame someone. That way the can put all the death people numbers on WHO and not take any responsibility fro their handling of the situation.
I completely agree that there's a political element, but I'd like to hear from the individuals who are so up-in-arms about this as to why they personally are so aggrieved and how they interpret the facts to indicate such culpability on the WHO's part.
I can't help there, I suppose that is the same when someone feel attacked in their beliefs religious or political, some people get really aggressive about that.
A US administration which was still insisting that they were on the cusp of eliminating it in late March and is actively encouraging public disobedience of disease control measures for partisan reasons has decided it's the WHO's fault. This inevitably means discussion of their claims dominates the news cycle where many HN readers are based.
[The fact the criticism is politically driven is also why people are focusing to political trivia like WHO treating One China as a reality like all other major national and transnational organizations and attributing positions actually made by Trump's domestic critics to the WHO, and paying less attention to the WHO's dubious stances which might have actually cost lives, such as their position on masks]
Second, we already know for weeks or months that ferrets and cats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2—they even find it in their feces. This paper was released to preprint in March 31st and today is May 8th: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.015347v1
Third, virologists and especially those who have studied Coronaviruses for decades say the intermediate species could not have been a pangolin: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-609/
This article misrepresents the lab theory. At least in its most common version, the lab theory is not "it came from a lab, not bats". It is "it came from bats, was being used for research, and got out accidentally". The article omits this, creating the impression that animal origin is evidence against the lab theory, when of course both could be true.
They wouldn't have left this out by accident. It's an obvious omission once you know about it and it changes the meaning of the story. I have no opinion about whether the virus came from a lab or didn't (how the hell would I know), but when I see someone trying to manipulate me this way, it makes me angry and suspicious and pushes me toward the other side. I've had no interest in the criticisms of Bloomberg reporting before now, but this article incriminates itself.
What conspiracy theories are you referring to exactly? Because just based on facts (Their handling of Taiwan, their statements parroting CCP propaganda in January claiming the virus was not transmissible between humans, their condemnation of travel restrictions as xenophobic etc...) they are pretty clearly not on the side of facts or truth. Make of that what you will, but you can't deny the facts.
A conspiracy is any agents coming together, even if unknowingly, to a achieve a common objective. This is very directly what you wrote whether or not it is factual, though the writing appears very much an opinion.
I have looked at the fact that the United States formally endorses the Chinese position on the 'One China' policy, and its president repeatedly thanked China for its transparency over Coronavirus and conciuded that the United States is also a mouthpiece of the CCP...
What I remember reading was something like "there is no evidence that the virus can be transmitted by humans" , was it uncovered that there was such evidence and was hidden?
I see that is a lot of China blaming but I seen US politicians and media were also pushing strong into "there is no evidence" and is just the flu.
Anyway this entire "show" just confirms my view on politics, the big trick to use is "Blame the others, we had the power but all the other parties are at fault we have no blame",
You can't bring in someone's personal details to use as ammunition in an argument. That's a form of personal attack, and we ban accounts that do it. Please don't do this again.
I haven't "brought someone's personal details as ammunition". I have called someone by his name when had introduced himself by his name beforehand in his HN's "about". How can this be personal attack? Some would say I'm just being polite.
If he does not like it then perhaps he should not publish his name on HN or should write things that he is not ashamed of.
If you introduce yourself by "Hi I'm John" then you cannot complain that people call you John.
I'm finding it a little hard to read your intent here. But that is secondary anyhow, because in the game of internet comments, what you did comes across as menacing and a move in the online callout/shaming direction. We're trying to avoid that culture on HN, so please don't do it again.
Are you saying that it is not allowed on HN to address someone by their name after they have introduced themselves? It's me who's not clear about your intent here... How can I call out/personally attack/shame someone that way?
If their name was not available on HN I would agree with you, but, again, in this case the person voluntarily introduced themselves on HN first.
I also note that the person in question still has their name in their HN's "about" so clearly they have no problem with it.
Btw, my intent is that I don't like hypocrisy and posturing. It's hypocrisy to claim to feel offended and intimidated by me addressing that person by their name, which their freely published in their HN's "about", and you seem to be playing along.
> Are you saying that it is not allowed on HN to address someone by their name after they have introduced themselves?
We can't make a simple rule about this. Imagine someone posting "Oh my god, Joe Schmoe! We worked together at Acme Inc!" or whatever. That's harmless. But yeah, if you're in an argument with someone - don't go there. In that case it most likely signals personal aggression.
I appreciate that you don't like hypocrisy and posturing. I don't either. But there can easily be distortion in our interpretation of such things online. We have so few data points on each other that whatever picture we receive is mostly how our own imagination has connected the dots; and we tend to fill in the blank spaces with material from our own darker side. The net result is that we end up feeling surrounded by our own demons on the internet - I've written about this in the past: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That clearly doesn't take us to good places, so we need to guard against it.
The WHO is an international organization trying to do its best in a complex international political field. They can't straight away say Taiwan is independent or they will be banned from China and what good would it actually do. The best they can do is avoid answering this kind of question which they unsurprisingly did.
Also, please stop paroting the Republican media nonsense. The WHO did warn of human to human transmission in January [1]. They also didn't say travel restrictions were xenophobic by the way. They said they were not usually the solution to this problem while robust contact tracing, isolation and testing broadly were. A recommendation a lot of governments have apparently found very hard to follow.
You can't deny facts but the facts you are putting forward just don't exist.
In January they said the virus doesn't transmit between humans. Then they said travel restrictions are xenophobic. Then they said the world should thank China for its efforts.
WHO, being staffed by scientists, should recognize that Taiwan indeed exists, that it has its own government that responded to the pandemic, and that China is not in charge there. Pretending otherwise leads to losing credibility, as everyone knows Taiwan does indeed exist. I've actually seen it.
Scientists should recognize because it exists but the politicians and governments that pay those scientist don't have to recognize Taiwan because they live in Wonderland I guess. Your logic is impeccable.
Yes, and when he came back and was asked about Taiwan again, he said he already discussed China and ended the conversation. Taiwan doesn't exist according to WHO.
WHO, being staffed by scientists, should recognize that Taiwan indeed exists, that it has its own government that responded to the pandemic, and that China is not in charge there. Pretending otherwise leads to losing credibility, as everyone knows Taiwan does indeed exist. I've actually seen it.
The tweet was different though (and AFAIK, much earlier):
"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China."
It clearly mentions that they're relaying what Chinese authorities are saying.
I also don't see how this influenced anything. It took almost every country way too long to respond. Loads of countries thought it'll be fine for them.
Like most of what is not strictly “scientific “ (quoted because this term is being abused so much today that it would be hilarious were it not for the inflicted suffering).
And no: just trying to clear China’s laboratories from guilt is NOT scientific.
I think I'm missing something here, which chinese laboratory would be guilty of what? Are you talking the claim the virus has been engineered in a lab? If so I think there is a consensus of scientits that reckon it is not the case.
In the same city district as the wet market that was visited by a number of the first cases, there is a Chinese laboratory that does research on bat coronaviruses, and that has had accidents and international criticism on its safety in the past.
It is hard to provide evidence, but the accusation is that it somehow originated there.
Scientists seem to agree that it isn't an engineered virus, but that doesn't mean it isn't a wild virus first transmitted from bats to humans in that lab.
This is a misleading statement. There is consensus that there are no traces of gene editing in the virus. But this statement is not equal to "it wasn't produced in the lab".
They said wearing masks does not help decrease infectious spread. They actually claimed that wearing masks can increase infectious spread because of improperly wearing it.
The ongoing debate is whether getting the general public to wear masks is actually helpful or not.
See my other response for ways in which that differs from medical staff doing it. It's psychology and sociology as well as pure "can a mask stop the virus", which are important factors when looking at disease transmission in a population.
Healthcare workers wear masks of a known quality, which they have fit tested, and they know how long to use them and when to dispose of them. They wear them as part of a full protective strategy along with other context-appropriate equipment and have training to know how to conduct themselves in the situation too.
You can't just claim the same benefits for an old piece of t-shirt stretched across your face. An old piece of t-shirt which may give you a false sense of security and lead you to take risks and get closer to other people, and which may make you touch your face more, and which you may not clean or replace etc etc...
> They said wearing masks does not help decrease infectious spread. They actually claimed that wearing masks can increase infectious spread because of improperly wearing it.
Can you please point to the studies claiming that masks significantly lower transmission rates? The only think I ever read was it lowers a bit the transmission FROM infected people by blocking some of the droplets sneezed/coughed, but just wearing them doesn't protect healthy people anyhow. Unless you have N95 + good glasses and perfect hygiene.
The behavior of 'I have a basic mask therefore I am protected' - I've seen it quite a few times personally. It really can lead to false feeling of security and lowering one's guard. I've seen folks wearing them incorrectly too, especially in the beginning - ie not over nose, huge gaps around it, putting it down in store for a call etc.
I think your statements are taken out of context of what was claimed. Not claiming WHO is perfect (far from it), but trump-ish bashing everybody and everything external instead of admitting one's utter failure and working on fixing things won't change much.
WHO said that masks are very helpful for Asia. Netherlands government also mention that the usefulness of masks is questionable at best. This despite that the masks obviously do help.
It seems that this was said because there's a huge shortage of masks. People starting hoarding them, plus stealing them from hospitals and so on.
So yeah, WHO did mention masks aren't super useful for the general public, but seems like the reason is mostly because to prevent people going crazy for masks.
The bit about people thinking their safe due to a bad mask is also mentioned by the Dutch government btw. And they decide for themselves, they do not just follow whatever WHO says.
The current director ISN'T EVEN A DOCTOR. He's old guard politician for the Ethiopian government. He covered up THREE cholera outbreaks that killed a lot of people in his country.
China hold over a quarter of Ethiopian debt. They also only give aid to countries that do what they say and vote as they want in the UN (countries that don't lose billions in investment -- a huge amount of money for small, impoverished countries in Africa).
He's not an MD, but he is a doctor. He has a doctorate in community health, a masters in immunology of infectious diseases, and a bachelors in biology.
Is there a specific reason to think that a "microbiologist and internationally recognized malaria researcher" with a doctorate in community health will naturally perform much worse as WHO director than an MD?
The WHO also is claiming that Taiwan is just a part of China and the WHO will not accept a free Taiwan. Seems overly political and specific for an "independent" health organization.
> which are obviously implanted by the US media narative
As a non-american, please don't speak for us all. Also, using word "obviously" doesn't substitute for factual evidence. There are plenty of people skeptical about WHO's handling of the situation outside US too.
I‘m „non-American“ and pretty glad that at least some nation in the world is not keeping their mouths shut about the research CCP did in those low safety standards Wuhan labs, and about how CCP is desperately trying to change the narrative. This has to be discussed. There is good reason not to buy all this animal-origin theory research coming from mainland China and there is good reason to criticise WHO if they are publicly following this narrative at this point.
You can point me to a case where the US endangered the whole world with a global pandemic by covering up an outbreak for months if you can find one.
The laboratory people like pointing at is a biosafety level 4 facility. The entire purpose is to allow safely studying the most dangerous diseases the world has.
It's not clear how the WHO is actually helping with the pandemic.
Do they treat patients, develop vaccines, tests, antibody tests, or treatment protocols? What do they do exactly? Seems like they talk and have press conferences where they say with confidence to the world, as China is locking up a city, that the virus doesn't transmit between humans.
It's funny you consider WHO a serious organization.
I went to look since you didn't quote it:
"The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health.[1] The WHO Constitution, which establishes the agency's governing structure and principles, states its main objective as ensuring "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.
So what have they done or are doing to stop the pandemic? Like, really, what?
I haven't lived in the USA for almost 10 years, intentionally don't follow or consume USA media and I am far from a fan of Donald Trump. Try again CCP troll.
You started a wretched flamewar in this thread and perpetuated it egregiously, breaking several of the site guidelines badly. We ban accounts that do this kind of thing. Would you please review the rules and stick to them when posting here from now on? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I completely agree with you and even "crazier" I don't hang out with Alex Jones type of people, though the vast majority of I've recently talked to about it also agree with us.
I don't get why you're being downvoted, I had to create a throwaway for obvious reasons; I usually find myself not ready to "out" any of my opinions.
Unpopular opinion (for HN maybe :) - the WHO, which does not solely deal with infectious diseases, much to the world's chagrin, is doing the best job that they can considering the situation. On average the advice from the WHO on a whole range of medical topics has been nothing but excellent, and I am loathe to discount them entirely based on a few press statements that have been taken wildly out of context by the media and the internet as a whole. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when HN unfailingly dogpiles onto the WHO in yet another thread. Are people missing the forest for the trees?
I'm also glad we have a WHO as central point of information and knowledge.
But the WHO could have been more careful with how they put out information.
For example: "...no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission,...". This was a true statement, there was no evidence at that time. But they also knew what was going on in China. They could have asked themselves: what if it is human-to-human transmittable? Then they would have never used those words, because those words downplayed the potential risks.
I agree with you the media (and governments) blew this up later when the evidence was there. The WHO never said it was not human-to-human transmittable, but words were taken out of context and suddenly the WHO was to blame.
It is worth noting thst the @WHO account tweeted clarification just a few hours later. Whoever made that tweet did not consider their audience correctly, and the resulting misinterpretation is partially on them. But the way it's been spun as some sort of smoking gun is shocking given it is so easy to debunk.
The problem is leaders should not be basing decisions on a tweet but by listening to experts they have at hand. e.g. someone like Fauci would have told what that tweet means.
The second point, none of the nations did do anything different on 23rd Jan when WHO confirmed the H2H transmission and its severity, so how did that tweet made any difference?
I wouldn't want to discount them entirely, but their recent foray into TCM has left me less than entirely on-side. On average I'm sure they do a great job, but they're not perfect and should be pushing back against damaging woo like this.
Not very unpopular, any rational actor would not blame WHO for a lot, CCP maybe for few things. The US has screwed up big time for the richest nation, it's state and central govt and people all have acted completely orthogonal of common sense and now they need a scapegoat.
Can you list even a single thing they have done a good job of in their handling of this crisis? And which countries are you referring to exactly which have worked with them and are doing well? They won't even acknowledge Taiwan which is handling this better than almost every other country.
They setup a response team within a day or two of hearing from China about a handful of atypical pneumonia cases, they notified all member states within a few days of that (including of the risk of human-to-human transmission), and within another week they had issued comprehensive testing guidance and asked a German team to design a test. This was all within the first couple weeks.
Apart from the impossibility of doing the “best” (as there is no such thing except in mathematics), it is not a frw press statements. It is knee-jerking before China.
I don't think "average advice" is a good metric here -- if you play russian roulette you will "win" on average or even in most cases. What matters is protection from downside which is where the WHO failed when they said the disease was not transmissible between humans and travel restrictions were not necessary.
Sorry but this is just hopelessly naive. Have you seen their handling of Taiwan, their statements parroting CCP propaganda in January claiming the virus was not transmissible between humans, their condemnation of travel restrictions as xenophobic? I could go on.....
All international organizations have the same handling of Taiwan. It's not a WHO specific issue, it extends to basically every other similar intergovernmental organization you can think of, even the ones that aren't specialized agencies of the UN (which the WHO is), like INTERPOL.
Arguably the WHO has blood on its hands for allowing the virus to spread.
They unquestionably are influenced by China and CCP's politics, not just denying Taiwan's existence, but the many statements praising China throughout the entire pandemic, on virtually all talking points, while being critical of western nations handling of the virus.
If ever there was a time to take action, point fingers, and restore some dignity to supposedly independent health organizations, it is now, by creating a new organization.